In a country like Pakistan where challenges are plenty, approaches to addressing social development needs remain complicated. Given an environment of uncertainty, the challenges require innovation and holism.

Many people, particularly the young, are now bringing solutions to the table, in a bid to bring a change that has a lasting impact on underprivileged communities.

From health, education, nutrition and hygiene to housing and micro-finance, entrepreneurs have stepped into diverse areas. Profit alone does not determine the success of these ventures which combine social elements to address specific challenges of communities in a bid to make lives better for the people.

What’s problematic is the perception that non-government entities, regardless of their structure, ethos and operations, working in social development are all clubbed together into one big fat category, informally known as the NGOs. Surprisingly, the term has come about to be used in a manner that suggests something exploitative about their very nature. The ‘agendas’ of these initiatives, no matter what problem they address and no matter how indigenous they truly are, is always put to question. Given our unique challenges in terms of security, while some of the concerns are understandable, a majority others appear to be unfounded.

The need is for the government and the society at large to find ways to work together and collectively ensure lives of the ordinary people improve through sustained efforts.